


Self-Sabotage

by Etienne_Bessette



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Academy Era, Best Enemies Kinkmeme fill, Crack, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, For Science!, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, In which Theta actually sounds like the First Doctor, In which the Rani is terrifying, Jealousy, M/M, Mad Science, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Misunderstandings, Prank Wars, Ridiculous, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etienne_Bessette/pseuds/Etienne_Bessette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response to the Best Enemies prompt: <i>Theta/Koschei. The two are best friends, then Koschei gets jealous after (mistakenly) assuming that Theta has a girlfriend. Because the universe /needs/ more Academy fic. Or it'll like, implode or something.</i> Includes mad science, prank wars, and sappiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot thank [](http://dragonofmemory.livejournal.com/profile)[memorydragon](http://dragonofmemory.livejournal.com/) enough for beta-ing this for me. It went through....four? five? revisions at the very least. She, among other things, 1) helped me with my Theta characterization so that he actually _sounds like One_ now, 2) told me where my imagery just plain failed and how to fix it, 3) helped me to flesh out my Koschei motivations, during the process of which much Koschei-torment was added, 4) prodded me to give Vera more presence in the fic, 5) inadvertently reminded me that I had, in the original response, _completely forgotten to add an ENTIRE SECTION_. The fic has grown by about 2,500 words, and quite a bit of the rest has changed. In short, don't read the original response. This is SO MUCH BETTER NOW. It is practically a new response by this point.

Theta is standing outside, talking to a girl.

This would normally give Koschei no cause for alarm. Two of the Deca’s members are girls whom they talk to every day. They’ve both had class project or laboratory partners who were girls. A significant percentage of the people they see on a daily basis are, were, or potentially will be girls. So Theta talking to a girl should not be a Thing To Be Concerned About.

Except that Koschei is pretty sure that he knows every single face of everyone in their year, and She is not among them. He rules out lab partner and project groupmate instantly, and _that_ is frankly alarming because Theta is talking to _Her_ over lunch instead of to _Koschei_ , and there is no reason outside of school that could possibly be important enough to interrupt Koschei’s Theta Time.

_Maybe,_ Koschei thinks, _Theta has been waylaid: the innocent, hapless victim of a spontaneous conversation leech._

Except that Theta doesn’t appear to be in any distress; he’s chatting animatedly with The Girl. His lightly freckled face, half-turned away from Koschei’s line of sight, is candle-bright and warm. Laugh lines and smile lines crinkle the corners of his blue eyes and his upturned mouth. It’s an expression that Koschei is used to being directed at _himself_ , not at a complete stranger. His posture is relaxed, and the lines of his tall, slim form are fluid and elegant. He doesn’t even seem to be on the lookout for Koschei.

_Maybe,_ Koschei tries, _he’s forgotten that today’s the day I come back._ His Introduction to Anisotropic Spacetime Perturbations class had been gone on a field trip for the past week. But that was only a _week_ —surely Theta couldn’t have forgotten in just a _week_ …

Theta laughs at something The Girl has said, and throws his hands up with careless abandon, tipping his face towards silver leaves dripping with drops of afternoon gold—drops that fall like molten summer and pool in the waves of his white-blonde hair. Then he leans closer to The Girl—really _much_ closer than Koschei thinks he _ought_ to be—and wags one index finger at her chidingly, still chuckling as he does so. The Girl laughs with him, and Koschei notices for the first time how beautiful she is. Her long, thick red hair glows like fire in the sunlight about her heart-shaped face and spills in waves down her long, slender neck to tumble about her shoulders. Her skin is nut-brown and smooth, and try as he might, Koschei can’t find any imperfections in her complexion, though he _does_ note with a tiny bit of satisfaction that her nose is a tad too large for her face. She tilts her head flirtatiously to one side and bats her eyes at Theta, and to Koschei’s absolute _horror_ , Theta laughs and leans in a little bit closer.  
   
It’s far from uncommon for girls to flirt with Theta. Theta is gorgeous and brilliant, so of course girls are going to flirt with him. But Theta has never paid any attention to their advances before…

_I’ve been gone a_ week _. One. Week. It’s not possible,_ Koschei thinks, _for Theta to have gone and found himself a—a—_

“Yeah,” Drax’s voice cuts into his thoughts. “They’ve been like that every day since you left.” Koschei hadn’t even noticed the other boy come to stand by his elbow. “Her name is Vera. She’s about a decade or so behind us, but apparently she’s quite clever.”  
   
“Clever?” Koschei’s teeth are gritted together. _Surely she can’t be as clever as_ I _am,_ he thinks.  
   
Drax nods. “They share a class together. Recreational Mathematics, I think. I guess Theta only just worked up the nerve to talk to her during lunch the day after you left for your field trip. They hit it off brilliantly from the start.”

“Good for them,” Koschei says icily.

Drax looks up at him and blinks. “You okay, Kosch? You’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes, just staring at them.”

It’s true. Koschei had been on his way outside to meet up with Theta for lunch, like they always did this time of day. He’d gotten as far as the entrance pillars when he’d seen them, and confusion had rooted his feet to the stone patio.

“I’m _fine_.” His hands have clenched into white-knuckled fists and have started to tremble. He quickly clasps them firmly together behind his back and turns his head to stare elsewhere around the field, as though he’s actually been looking for open places to sit the entire time. 

Drax looks at him doubtfully. “Okay…” He thinks for a moment, glances between Koschei and the pair outside, and then haltingly adds, “well, um, I have a workshop in a few minutes, so could you tell him for me that study group is going to be delayed an hour tonight?” Before Koschei can answer, Drax is already bounding away. “Thanks Kosch! See you later!”

Koschei stares after him and makes a mental note to nick something nice for Drax the next time he and Theta sneak out of the Capitol. His eyes draw back towards Theta and Vera. Now armed with a Legitimate Excuse to interrupt them, Koschei pushes away from the entrance pillar and stalks across the burning grass towards his best friend.

He’s halfway there when Vera notices him. She says something to Theta and chintips lightly in Koschei’s direction. Koschei can’t see Theta’s face, but he can read his body language better than anyone’s; Theta tenses up, all of his warm, fluid lines freezing into sharp, brittle angles.

Koschei stops, stunned, and stares as, without even a glance in Koschei’s direction, Theta offers his arm to Vera—who takes it graciously—and walks with her across the field, away from Koschei. 

The grass beneath Koschei’s feet seems to have threaded up to trap his ankles, and it is all that holds him in place as the balance of his reality is tipped—his best friend on one end falling away from him and leaving Koschei alone on the other, pivoting and plummeting into the empty nothingness outside of space. The unthinkable has happened. Even though the truth is right before his eyes, it takes him several seconds to wrap his mind around it. Theta has replaced him.

Theta has a girlfriend.

* * *

Koschei skips the rest of his classes that day—something he’s never done before. He claims illness, and even though he’s not actually sick, he feels miserable enough that the excuse isn’t really a lie. His heartsrate is elevated and he can’t seem to get enough air no matter how deeply he breathes. His stomach is churning and twisting around knots of sharp pain, and he feels nauseous even though he hasn’t eaten anything. He doesn’t think he could bear to sit so close to Theta, not after what had happened that afternoon. Not now that he knows Theta would just be wishing that he were with someone else.

Koschei throws himself down on his bed and stares at his ceiling. “Fuck,” he says. “I was gone a week. A single fucking _week_.”

A week during which he hadn’t even been able to _focus_ on the interesting aspects of the triple-system millisecond pulsar his class had been there to observe; he’d been too preoccupied thinking about _Theta_. Every time the professor had begun to yammer on self-importantly, Theta hadn’t been there to whisper acidly witty remarks in Koschei’s ear. When Koschei finished compiling the data he’d gathered on the pulsar, Theta hadn’t been there to listen to all of his brilliant ideas on how they could use it, and then to expand on them with his own unique imagination. Theta hadn’t been _there_ , and the empty space where he always stands next to Koschei had gaped like a ragged hole in the universe.

Koschei scowls. One of the constellations in the Celestial Map he’d painted onto his ceiling has begun to look like Vera every time he glances at it. He snags a pen from the nightstand and flings it viciously at the image. It lodges in one of her eyes. She smiles at him, unconcerned, and regenerates near Sagittarius B on the other side of the room. Koschei buries his head beneath his pillow.

He lies there and feels sorry for himself for most of the afternoon before he comes to his senses.

Theta is Koschei’s best friend. Koschei is _Theta’s_ best friend. He’s known Theta since they were first admitted to the Academy at eight years old. Theta has _no right_ to cast aside that bond as though it had never even existed, and Koschei will make him very aware of that fact. He will make certain that Theta knows what a bad idea it was to cast him aside. Vera may have had a week to stage the first assault, but she’s fighting a bond that’s _decades_ old.

And the war has just begun.

Fingers tapping to a beat of four, Koschei goes to find Ushas.

* * *

“Go away.”

“But this is important!”

Ushas doesn’t even turn around. She adjusts the heat on the burner nearest to her and begins measuring out a foul-smelling ochre powder. “I’m busy.”

Koschei narrows his eyes and tries to keep his irritation at being brushed aside from showing. “I’m not leaving.”

“Oh, really?” Ushas pours the powder into a glass beaker, adds a clear liquid, and sets it to boil on a hot plate. “Then you won’t mind making yourself useful as a testing template. My Entomorphthorales are all refusing to adapt themselves to a wider range of host specificity.”

Koschei places a larger distance between himself and the Time Lady, but does not leave. As the senior lab technician, Ushas is the only one with extra keys to every workroom in their building. Koschei _needs_ those keys.

“Oh for the love of…” She turns around at last, irritated, and glares at him. “ _What?_ ”

“I need keys to Theta’s lab.”

“You’re kidding me. You lost yours?”

Koshei blinks. “…I never had any.”

“Really?” Ushas’ irritation slips into puzzlement for a moment. “But I thought…oh, never mind. Look, I really am busy here. Just ask Theta to make you some copies.”

Koschei grits his teeth and tries, unsuccessfully, to keep the edge out of his voice. “He’s been a bit _busy_ lately.”

Ushas stares at him uncomprehendingly for a few seconds. Then her expression clears, only to be constipated with disdain and exasperation a second later. “ _Rassilon_ , leave me _out_ of your little domestic spats! Just apologize and snog him or whatever. Get out of my lab.”

Koschei gapes at her, horrified. “I—we’re not—we didn’t—“ Of all the indignities, now he’s _stammering_ like a _thirty year-old_. Koschei ignores the heat in his own cheeks and snaps, “Ushas, just give me the keys and I’ll leave you alone with your carnivorous fungi.”

“Fine. Take my spare.” She turns back to the boiling solution, which is now fluorescing bright orange and emitting what sounds disturbingly like high-pitched animal screams. “Top left drawer of Table One. Anyone finds out that you have it, and I’ll have found a new host for my Zoophthora Alpha. Also, don’t touch the agar dishes behind the keys."

Koschei takes the threat seriously. He carefully retrieves the spare keys anyway and leaves Ushas’s lab as quickly as possible to go and make a few copies. He doesn’t want to risk Ushas’s wrath a second time if he can help it.

* * *

Koschei waits until Theta is in class to break into his laboratory. The door is deadlocked, but his newly acquired keys take care of that problem without leaving any signs of a forced entry. _Paranoid,_ Koschei thinks, and then smirks. _With good reason, I suppose._ Koschei and Theta have pulled enough pranks on their classmates to warrant fear of retribution. He deadbolts the door shut behind him.

Theta’s lab is immaculate; tools are organized according to type and function in labelled boxes, experiments are neatly contained on separate benches, and every step of every process has been carefully annotated in workspace-specific notebooks in Theta’s smooth, elegant script. Koschei rubs his thumb over a thready blue sentence and feels a surge of warm affection flow through his chest. He swallows back the twinge of guilt that prickles his hearts and reminds himself that _Theta_ is the one who started this. _Theta_ is the one who abandoned him. He’s brought what Koschei is about to do down on himself.

“Right then,” Koschei says quietly, and cracks his knuckles in preparation. “What do we have here?” He flips back a couple of pages and grins. Despite Theta’s usual predilection towards procrastination and laziness, he has never been sloppy with his notes. “Oh, Theta, how considerate of you to be so very thorough. This is going to be _easy_.”

* * *

The next morning, Borusa stops in mid-sentence as Theta, late to class as usual, attempts to slink unnoticed through the back door of the classroom. _Oh, good luck with_ that _in your condition, Theta_ , Koschei thinks snidely.

“What,” Borusa asks, “in Rassilon’s name have you done to yourself?”

Every head in the classroom turns to look. Koschei remains very still and holds his lower lip tightly between his teeth to keep from laughing. Snickers rise throughout the room, and Koschei can tell that Theta should probably be turning bright red about now.

If, of course, he weren’t a bright fluorescent blue from head to toe.

“Laboratory accident,” Theta mumbles, though it’s clear from his expression that he doesn’t for a microsecond believe the “accident” portion of his own excuse.

Koschei is grinning; he can’t help himself. This is working _perfectly_ according to plan. Across the room, Ushas catches sight of his triumphant expression and gives him her most withering ‘I cannot believe how juvenile you are’ look, before pointedly ignoring them both in favor of her textbook. Drax takes slightly longer to catch on—his eyes dart back and forth between Theta and Koschei for a couple of seconds—but when he does, his eyes widen comically in horror. He sinks deeper into his seat and raises his book like a barricade.

Borusa sighs and waves Theta to his seat, picking up where he left off in his lecture on temporal field mapping.

Koschei watches Theta navigate the maze of desks to the seat adjacent him. Theta sits down and arranges his books and notes with as much dignity as he can muster, and then, very slowly, turns his head to look with narrowed, suspicious eyes at Koschei.

Koschei smirks. “What’s wrong, Theta? Feeling a bit blue today?” he whispers.

Theta stares at him.

Up close, the results of Koschei’s sabotage are even more impressive. Blue has soaked into every pore and every crease of Theta’s skin, as though pools of artron energy have overflowed from the core of his body and spilled like rivers into lakes beneath an alien sky. Every strand of hair, every eyelash glows like impossibly thin psychic threads all coalescing into an electric halo around Theta’s perfect face.

Very suddenly, Koschei wants to kiss him more than anything. He wants to catch Theta’s lower lip gently between his teeth and drink him in. He wants to savor the fullness of everything that is _Theta_ and bottle it on his tongue. He wonders how it would feel to have Theta’s lips on his, and what he would taste like if he wanted Koschei as much as Koschei wants him. For a few seconds, all Koschei can do is stare back at him, stunned and bewildered by the sudden, unexpected desire overwhelming him. Where had _this_ come from?

Koschei manages to force his eyes away, down to his notebook, and he grips his stylus between his fingers hard enough that he can feel his twin hearts pulsing between thumb and forefinger. The quadruple beat of drums in his head is mirrored by his hearts, louder in unison than he has ever heard them before. He has no idea why, out of _nowhere_ , he suddenly wants to kiss his _best friend_ breathless. Worse, he can feel Theta’s eyes on him. He wonders if Theta has noticed his strange reaction, and if so, what he’s thinking.

Koschei doesn’t look in Theta’s direction again for the remainder of the period, despite the insistent pressure of Theta’s telepathic queries tapping impatiently and with sharp irritation against his mental shields.

Class ends, and Koschei switches the screen of his notebook off and tucks away his books. By the time he stands from his desk and looks over, Theta is already gone.

Koschei sighs, unsure whether the rush he feels in his chest is disappointment or relief, or maybe a strange blend of both. Theta has probably gone to find a way to remove the blue from his system (unfortunate, really, considering how striking Theta had looked, but on the other hand the color _had_ clashed horribly with the red and orange Prydonian Chapter student robes).

And anyway, Koschei has Theta’s attention now for certain, which was the entire point in the first place. Even though Theta had left without even speaking to him, Koschei tells himself that he knows Theta too well; this won’t be the end of the matter.

Koschei has no idea how right he is.

* * *

Koschei waits in the library, allowing several people to witness him going in so that Theta will be able to track him down with ease. He works on his assignments, taking his time about them. He studies the handbook of TARDIS flight regulations when he’s finished with his main coursework; he’s determined to pass _his_ exams the first time around.

Hours pass by, and Theta has still not made an appearance.

Koschei sets his books aside and leans back in his chair, frowning. He cards his fingers through his hair, working the tangles from the fine black strands, and then moves his fingertips to his temples and gently massages his psychic centers. Despite his earlier success, he feels as though he’s losing control of the situation—or worse, that he was never _in_ control. The nausea he’d felt yesterday rises up once more, and his stomach begins to throb. 

The feeling sets his teeth on edge, sets the drums pounding harder inside his skull. An ache settles within the psychic centers of his brain. _One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, can’t-wait-any-more._

Koschei is out of his seat before he even registers having moved. He stuffs his electronic texts and notebooks into his satchel and goes off in search of Theta.

Theta isn’t hard to track down. It doesn’t appear as though he’s been trying to avoid Koschei, even if he certainly hasn’t been trying to seek him out either. Then again, Koschei has managed to approach unnoticed, so he doesn’t know if Theta would have tried to evade him otherwise. Possibly so, as when Koschei _does_ find him, Theta is in his lab with the door shut, and Koschei can hear two different voices coming from within.

“—no idea what the little fool is doing.” Theta’s voice carries a raised edge of petulance amidst overt irritation. “Everything was going so _well_ until he came back.”

“Are you still going to tell him?” a unfamiliar girl asks. Her voice is smooth and musical. _Vera,_ Koschei determines. _This must be Vera._

“No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to tell him eventually.”

“He’s going to find out sooner or later. My bet is on sooner; Koschei is clever. You know that.”

Koschei thinks he might have to raise his opinion of Vera _just_ a little bit.

Theta scoffs derisively. “He hasn’t noticed _yet_ , has he? He’s utterly clueless, that one!”  
   
Koschei feels something crumple between his hearts and sag, heavy and aching, in his chest. Has Theta always thought this poorly of him, and he’d just never known? His fingers tremble as he presses them lightly against the door.

“It would still best that you be the one to tell him,” Vera insists.

Theta’s sigh is audible even on Koschei’s side of the closed door. “You’re right. But I simply—he drives me _mad_. I can’t even stand to be around him sometimes.”

The weight in Koschei’s chest collapses inward to the point where he stops breathing entirely. He feels cold all over from a chill that begins deep inside his body and seeps outwards, as though a hole to the empty void outside of space and time has opened inside him. His hearts _ache_ , and he hears the echoes of Theta’s last words reverberate inside his head, nearly as loud as the drums and far more painful.  
   
A light tinkle of glass and metal interrupts the conversation: equipment being shifted around, likely tidying the ‘adjustments’ Koschei had made to Theta’s workstations. The noise drowns out Vera’s next few words, and all he can make out is, “—like that at first. It’ll get better, but only if you tell him soon, so he has time to get used to the idea.”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Theta huffs. “But I wonder what his problem is _now_. He’s never sabotaged my experiments before. Have those pulsar emissions addled his mind?”

“You know him better than I do.”

There’s a pause. Then, Theta says, “Hm. Sometimes I feel as though I don’t know him at all.”

Koschei bites down on his lower lip and closes his eyes. _I could say the same about you, Theta. I thought we were friends. Best friends! I thought…_  
   
The sounds of footsteps, clattering tools, and the hum of electricity thrumming through whirring apparatuses’ metal veins fill in the next half-minute of silence. Koschei’s mouth has gone dust-dry. The drums have lodged in his windpipe; his respiratory bypass engages, but he still can’t seem to get enough air.

“Now that is terribly clever, Vera. Yes, very clever indeed.” Koschei can imagine perfectly how Theta must look on the other side of the door, from all of the times that he had praised _Koschei’s_ cleverness in the exact same manner. His hands will be gripping the lapels of his open outer robe while he rocks back very slightly on his heels and nods with approval, a pleased expression brightening his face. The open admiration in Theta’s voice rips like needles in Koschei’s blood. “What would I do without you?”

Koschei flees silently before he can hear Vera’s response. He doesn’t stop running until he’s safely ensconced inside his own lab several hallways down. He deadlocks the door behind him and leans heavily against it while he tries to control his suddenly erratic breathing.

Not going according to plan. _Not at all._ Sabotaging Theta’s experiments had been a sure way to get his attention (Academy students take their science _seriously_ ), and force Theta to stop ignoring him. It had been, in Koschei’s mind, a very not-subtle hint that ditching your best friend of over six decades for a girl you’ve known inside of a _week_ is a Bad Idea. A small portion of the overwhelming hurt and pain he feels kindles into anger again, because Theta has _no right_ to do this to him. Koschei is not someone to be taken for granted. He will not be deceived and then discarded and ignored.

He had intended his little prank to remind Theta of this. He had _not_ expected the incident to draw Theta and Vera even closer while simultaneously pushing Koschei further away. The realization makes him feel even more sick.

And what had Theta meant to tell him? What secret is he so reluctant to expose to Koschei? Theta has never kept anything remotely important from him before! Whenever anything happens to either of them, the other is always the first to know. So why is _Vera_ now suddenly the only person Theta can talk to? What could possibly be between them that Theta couldn’t tell Koschei about first?  
   
Koschei scowls at the floor, his mind whirring and flipping through possibilities until he stumbles upon a possibility that wrenches his breath from his lungs. “No,” he whispers, eyes wide with horror. “No, they can’t be _that_ serious already. That isn’t possible.” Shock drains the strength from his legs until all he can feel are tiny bursts of pin-prick pain amidst detached numbness. He slides slowly down the door to sit in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Unless…unless Theta has been seeing Vera for far, far longer than Koschei had thought, and Koschei has just been oblivious to the entire thing. Prydonian Chapter students are cunning, devious, and good at keeping secrets. They pride themselves on this talent. Theta is no exception; he just seems lazier than most about it. No one, not even Koschei, would suspect Theta of even being _capable_ of sustaining such a thorough, long-term deception.

Maybe that was how he’d done it—how he’d pulled the cloth over Koschei’s eyes. He might have been involved with Vera for years without Koschei ever knowing.

Koschei grips the drums in his thoughts as he feels panic swell inside of him. Their steady, firm rhythm braces him, supports him with its unyielding structure, and Koschei uses them like a ladder to anchor himself as he descends into his own memories. He looks for clues: anomalies in Theta’s behavior, things that would seem suspicious only if he knows what he’s looking for.

He finds nothing until about a year ago. Somewhere around that time, Theta had stopped touching him quite as much. He’d started keeping a bit more distance between them at all times. He’d avoided eye contact now and again, sometimes refusing to look at him at all abruptly and for no apparent reason. He’d started excusing himself from Koschei’s room earlier than usual, started taking more classes that Koschei wasn’t enrolled in. Memory after memory wells up in his mind until he’s drowning in all of the details he’d never wanted to see.

Koschei surfaces from his thoughts, trembling with revelation. A year. This has been going on for a year right in front of him, and he’s never even suspected it. “Oh, Theta,” he whispers. He isn’t sure whether he feels admiration for Theta’s unexpected _deviousness_ or hearts-breaking betrayal. He thinks that he feels both, one in each heart, polluting his bloodstream with alternating beats in time with the drums.

Koschei lets out a long, slow, quiet breath. He’s going to have to re-weave his perception of Theta, but that isn’t something he wants to do. He wants _his_ Theta, his brilliant, lazy, clever, rebellious Theta. His Theta wouldn’t keep something like this from his own best friend; such an act would be akin to maliciousness, and Koschei’s Theta isn’t _malicious_. Impish, yes. A troublemaker, _absolutely_ , but a _harmless_ one.

This isn’t harmless, and that’s the problem, Koschei realizes. This _hurts_ in a way that Koschei could never have anticipated, could never have braced for. Koschei has defenses everywhere and against everyone except for _Theta_. Koschei is a castle, and his cornerstone has been shattered; he feels his walls crumbling and tumbling away, leaving him naked and cold and empty.

Koschei swallows and steadies his mind with the quiet, ever-present drumbeat. He will not fall apart. He will deal with this. He will resolve it _somehow_. Koschei closes his eyes against the stinging prickles behind them and tries to blink back the moisture that follows. He takes in deep, shuddering breaths to calm himself. _Maybe,_ he thinks, _I should be direct for once. Just go to him and lay it all out and demand answers._

Yes, that’s a good idea. Except that it involves Koschei admitting to Theta something that he hasn’t quite come to terms with _himself_ just yet, so maybe he’ll wait a little while. Figure out what to say and how to say it. Besides, Theta seemed busy and irritated when Koschei had overheard him and Vera, and therefore probably not in the best frame of mind to listen openly to what Koschei has to say. Maybe he’ll find Theta tomorrow; he’ll wait a good twenty four hours to simmer down any tension between them.

In the meantime, Koschei has some lab work waiting for him that he can concentrate on to take his mind off of Theta. He might just be able to increase the accuracy of his handheld gravity wave detector by a couple of significant figures if he calibrates it with the new pulsar data he’d collected on his class trip.

Koschei does not, of course, rule out the possibility that Theta has broken into his lab for some retaliatory pranking, so he checks his notes and equipment thoroughly before he starts. When he finds nothing amiss, he feels slightly insulted and a tiny bit hurt; either Theta is refusing to play his game, or Theta just doesn’t consider Koschei worth his time at all anymore.

If Koschei hadn’t already decided to confront Theta directly, he’d have taken this as an indication that he needs to be a bit flashier and a bit more _vicious_ with his pranks. _No one_ dismisses Koschei out of hand like that. _No one_. The fact that it’s _Theta_ who appears to be doing so just hits that much more painfully home.

And…and Koschei had turned his attention to his lab projects so that he wouldn’t have to _think_ about Theta for a while, and that seems to be Not Working. He scowls at his equipment for a minute, then switches the power supply on and doggedly forces himself to concentrate.

Koschei gets about halfway through his procedure when a glass vacuum tube begins to emit a piercing, high-frequency shriek. Koschei nearly drops the circuit component in his hands, and he stares at the tube for the half-second it takes him to rule out ninety percent of all possible internal causes for such a phenomenon. Discarding the remaining ten percent and remembering what a prime target he currently is for sabotage takes him another tenth of a second.

He still doesn’t manage to duck beneath the table in time.

* * *

Koschei wakes to find the lab bench on the ceiling. Which is really quite alarming, as that is _certainly_ not where he left it. Then the edges of his vision kaleidoscope briefly into focus, and he reels, because the lab bench is not in fact on the ceiling; _Koschei_ is on the ceiling, and someone has inexplicably glued his signal function generators to the wall by his right hand.

Wait. No. That’s not right either.

The world kaleidoscopes again, symmetries unfolding in seven dimensions, and then his spatial orientation rotates and _bends_ from comfortably euclidean into hyperbolic space.

_Ohgodohgodohgod…_

Koschei squeezes his eyes shut and wills his brain to turn off its spatial sensitivity, for the sake of both his sanity as well as his stomach. The nausea passes eventually, but he keeps his eyes closed, floating formlessly in the safety of his own mind while he tries to figure out what in Sepulchasm has just happened.

Sabotage, obviously. It’s equally clear who the perpetrator is: Theta Sigma. And while on one hand this is _wonderful_ , he should probably save reveling in triumphant glee until _after_ he gets this mess sorted.

Which, at the moment, is a decidedly non-trivial problem.

Koschei squints one eye open. A corner of his lab folds in on itself and vanishes, only to reappear as mirror reflections of itself three feet on either side of where it _used_ to be.

Koschei groans.

As long as he keeps his spatial senses tuned to a minimum, however, the geometrical fluctuations are bearable. _I can work with this,_ he thinks. Koschei does some quick calculations in his head, takes a step along what _should_ translate as being the shortest path to the lab bench…

…and promptly falls arms over toes into a dustbin.

“What the—?” Koschei flails and tries to extricate himself from an assortment of crumpled papers, clipped wires, and sticky notes. He succeeds by tipping the bin over and emptying its contents—himself included—on top of the (blessedly _closed_ ) door.

The geometry had changed again mid-step. Koschei scowls. Whatever appreciation he had once held for the beauty of non-euclidean spaces is now eclipsed by an exponentially increasing annoyance over how _damned inconvenient_ it is to maneuver in. _Particularly_ when the entire room seems to transform randomly.

Wait.

Koschei stills and watches the room carefully. His temporal sense is still in tact, so he knows exactly how long it’s been since the last switch. When the room buckles once more, ellipses warping into Dehn Planes. He glances at the lab table and groans; an infinite number of parallel lines passing, impossibly, through any given point is not something he’d ever wanted to subject his eyes to. Koschei marks the time lapse down to the nearest nanosecond. Then he waits again.

Because however mad, infuriating, lazy, and _oblivious_ Theta Sigma may be, he is also _brilliant_. Nothing about this situation is _random_ ; there’s a pattern, and if Koschei can find it, then he can work against it.

Twelve iterations later, he has it. Another five iterations, and he’s formulated an absurdly complex, precise path of movement that should bring him back to the lab bench where this whole thing started.

Three false starts, two missteps, one encounter with an unexpected hatstand, and two and a half hours later, Koschei is _finally_ clinging to the edge of the table—or, rather, what would constitute an edge if there _were_ edges in the current geometry. He grits his teeth and glares at the vacuum tube that triggered it all. It is lying, innocent and still, along the table’s now saddle-like curves. Koschei studies it closely.

“Now that’s odd,” Koschei murmurs. “Nothing wrong with you.” He flicks his eyes from the glass tube to scan across the table’s remaining contents. “So if not the tube, then what _did_ you break?”

Koschei fingers a capacitor’s collapsing curves, turns over a couple of flattened cable adaptors, and checks the non-existent contents of his glass flasks-turned-Klein bottles. None of his equipment seems to be altered, outside of the shifting spatial coordinate bases.

A horrifying and infuriating thought occurs to him.

“Oh no you don’t,” Koschei snarls, grey eyes slitting. “You have _not_ tried to rig this so that I need to come to you for help. _Oh no._ Theta, you smug, arrogant _bastard_.”

Well, he’s certainly not going to give the other boy the satisfaction. Theta _has_ to be affecting localized space _somehow_ , and if Koschei can figure out how then he can beat Theta at their little game.

Wait. _Wait_.

Comprehension blooms, bright as the second sun, in Koschei’s face. _Of course!_ He glances up at his gravity wave detector, just to be sure, and flicks it on. Readings pop up to confirm his suspicions.

_Ha! Got you._

Theta has been controlling everything remotely—from the safety and anonymity of his own lab. Koschei remembers speculating with his friend about such a remote device, and on how they might be able to use it in their eventual plan to superglue the Lord President’s perigosto stick. But Koschei hadn’t known Theta’d been working on it since, much _less_ that he’d successfully built one!

Even though this is even more painful evidence that Theta has been keeping secrets from him, deceiving him and manipulating him, he can’t help but also admire how _brilliant_ he is. A surge of affection swells in his chest and pools in his stomach, as though a knot of gravity has nested in his belly and is drawing his insides down around it into a ball of tingling heat.

Oh. Oh _dear_. The same inexplicable and undeniable feelings that had overwhelmed him in the classroom yesterday have returned, and are making themselves _very_ difficult to ignore this time.

He’ll…deal with that problem later. And try very, very hard not think about it right now. Not, at least, until after he reverts space into something that obeys the Saccheri-Legendre Theorem; triangles should _never_ be permitted to have angles that sum to greater than 180 degrees—not in this dimension, at least.

Except…he can’t just jam Theta’s remote device and switch it off. Well, okay, he _could_ , but where would be the fun in _that_?

No, no, he has a _much_ better idea. It’s tricky, considering that he’ll still have to work with the changing geometries, but now that he’s worked out the pattern, all he needs is time. Planning his steps carefully in advance, Koschei snags a couple of long wires and bends them into the shape of a gamma. Then he strings a rubber band across the top prongs, pinches carefully folded, specifically-shaped sheets of foil around the wires, and attaches the ensemble to a function generator and his gravity wave detector. Koschei eyes his creation and smirks. _Okay, Theta,_ he thinks. _Let’s see how good_ you _are at thinking on your feet…or_ off _of them._

Koschei presses a switch and reflects Theta’s signal transmission.

The room rights itself, curves flattening into lines and hyperbolas closing up until normal euclidean space has reasserted itself.

Simultaneously, a loud screech shatters the silence throughout the entire building, emanating unmistakably from Theta’s lab.

Koschei tips his head back and the room reverberates with his laughter, the walls splitting his voice along symmetries until all that can be heard are the kaleidoscoping echoes of his triumphant glee.

The game is on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the prank war gets out of hand, and a confrontation is forced.

No one in the Applied Sciences C building gets much work done over the subsequent two weeks, including Koschei. He’s used to spending the majority of his time with Theta; they’d tackled homework together, collaborated on all of their projects, eaten lunch every day together, and filled their free time together with games, mischief, and daydreaming. But since Koschei had left for his class trip, he hadn’t been able to spend  _any_  time with Theta at all. The awful, empty loneliness that had haunted him during the entire week he’d been gone hadn’t ended—it had gotten worse. Time has stretched itself out and feels thin without his best friend there to give his days structure and meaning. Theta has removed himself from Koschei’s life, and the holes he has left behind are too deep and wide to fill.  
   
It doesn’t help matters that Theta seems to be managing just fine. Koschei watches him as surreptitiously as possible the day after the localized spacetime warping event. When Theta isn’t in his lab (presumably devising a suitable counterstrike), he spends his time with Vera. They study together in the library, pouring over books with their heads close together, gold mingling with copper red, the same way that Koschei and Theta used to. They lie out in the red grass watching the second sun chase the first across the sky. When they laugh, Koschei thinks that they must be planning their future lives together, and his throat burns with anger while his hearts grow leaden with longing.  
   
Koschei sulkily tries to throw himself into his schoolwork, but he finds that he can’t concentrate. His mind invariably drifts towards Theta and Vera. So when that fails, he decides to pour every scrap of his considerable intellect into the only remaining link he has with Theta: planning sabotages and counterstrikes in his war to take Theta back.  
   
At first, the escalation is slow and mostly confined to their respective laboratories. Theta retaliates first by polarizing every single one of Koschei’s non-polarized capacitors, and reversing the polarity of the currently polarized ones. Koschei returns, switches the power supplies on, and shrieks as hundreds of firecracker explosions pop sparks and twisted, charred metal in every single activated electronic apparatus. Ash grey smoke curls feebly up from ruined experiments like tiny flags of surrender.  
   
The next day, while Vera and Theta are busy chatting outside over a game of four-dimensional chess—and acting far too sickeningly cozy for Koschei to stand watching—Koschei lets himself into Theta’s lab with one of the several copies he’d made of Ushas’s spare keys. He shuts the door closed, switches on the lights, and then stares in abject horror at the sight that greets him.  
   
Theta’s lab is in shambles. There are wires  _everywhere_  and the projects once so neatly contained to individual tables have now spread outwards and spilled onto the floor, swapping components between themselves and creating exceedingly precarious footing for anyone trying to maneuver through the room.  
   
Koschei’s first thought is that someone else has managed to pull a prank on Theta, and he feels prickles of possessive outrage over the idea. How  _dare_  anyone else try to insinuate themselves into what is  _solely_  Koschei’s and Theta’s business! But then he realizes that the timing isn’t right—Theta had left his lab not long ago, and he would never have done so without first cleaning up if it had been someone else’s trickery that had caused the mess.  
   
Koschei frowns and steps carefully around the clutter towards the nearest set of notes. In them, he finds his answer. Any and all details of Theta’s projects are missing—presumably moved—and in their place is a message, left specifically for Koschei.  
   
 _Koschei:_  
   
 _As you have apparently decided to childishly use your free time to sabotage me, you will now find that my notes and projects are no longer organized in a manner that will enable you to understand them. Since you clearly cannot be trusted with knowledge of my experiments, I have taken the liberty of revoking this privilege from you._  
   
 _-Theta_  
   
Koschei stares at the note for a good half a minute before, in an explosion of fury, he wrenches it off the table and crushes it between his trembling fingers. He turns and glares at the rest of the laboratory, breathing heavily against the pressure closing inside his throat and between his hearts.  
   
Does Theta  _really_  believe that this will be the end of it? Does he really think that Koschei is so easily foiled? Rage and indignation boil in his chest.  _I might not be able to do any more hands-on manipulation with your precious pet projects,_  he thinks savagely,  _but you aren’t the only one who can build a Remote Spatio-Temporal Manipulator as equally complex—no, even_ more _so than the one you’ve made._  
   
Theta will learn very quickly not to underestimate him.  
  
Koschei waits until Theta is in class, and then remotely turns the floors of Theta’s lab completely frictionless. He later listens to the satisfying THUDS of Theta careening helplessly into walls while he desperately attempts to find purchase long enough to reverse the damage.  
   
The next day, Koschei walks into his lab to find every single surface  _coated_  in a thick layer of syrup.  
   
Koschei gets his revenge by breaking into Theta’s lab and channeling his compulsive neatness towards cleaning up the deliberate mess Theta has made of his equipment. Once he’s finished, the lab is pristine and tidy…and completely out of order, since Koschei has no idea what components belong to which project. He takes particular pleasure in organizing all of the micro-pulse emitters according to color rather than frequency range, and in hiding all of the wires behind the shelved signal generators. The end result is a neat lab as incomprehensible to Theta as the messy version had been to Koschei.  
  
Theta waits two days for Koschei to become complacent. Then, in the middle of a highly delicate procedure, he transmits a sonic frequency to his lab that shatters every piece of glass in the room…as well as two rooms in all directions.  
  
That’s when things start to get ugly.  
  
Koschei plants a quantum randomizer in Theta’s lab that winds up turning the entire building’s water supply into Roquefort cheese.  
  
Theta decorates Koschei’s lab with a dozen artfully placed naked singularities whose gravitational effects, while balanced, are  _not_  contained within the laboratory walls.  
  
Koschei rigs his remote sonic emitter to broadcast audio recordings of the lost poetry of Nancy Paula Millstone Jennings.  
  
The next day, they’re both summoned to the office of the Prydonian Chapter Head, an old man whose sense of humor had drained out of him sometime over the course of his past eleven regenerations. Koschei scowls sullenly at the floor, miserable and frustrated. He’s fallen behind in his classes, not had  _any_  Theta Time for three  _entire weeks_ , and now the Chapter Head himself is reprimanding him, and Koschei doesn’t even have anything to show for it yet. Theta hasn’t stopped spending the majority of his free time with Vera. Theta has, however, stopped even  _looking_  at Koschei, and as a result Koschei’s hearts are constantly torn with an exhausting blend of anger, misery, and desperation. The only benefit he can see for the immediate future is that maybe Theta will be forced to talk to Koschei now that they’ve both been summoned into the same room for a reprimand.  
   
Theta (whom Koschei is in no way surreptitiously observing out of the corner of his eyes) is clutching white-knuckled at the lapels of his outer robe and staring at the Chapter Head. His face is carefully blank save for the tight press of his lips, but Koschei knows that expression—Theta is  _furious_.  
  
“Koschei, Theta Sigma,” the Head greets them, his voice rumbling like oily gravel. “Would either of you care to explain yourselves?”  
  
Theta stares and remains stonily silent. Koschei shifts his feet uncomfortably. “No?” the old man frowns and leans forward, lacing his tree bark fingers together with elbows rooted on his desk. “Very well. While I’m sure that your colleagues appreciate your…ingenuity…neither they nor I will tolerate these disruptions any longer. If I hear of one more incident, I will have you  _both_  expelled from the Academy.” He pauses, and then his eyes glitter in a manner that Koschei _really_  doesn’t like. “If that isn’t enough incentive, do consider that I may just as easily hand you into young Ushas’s care. She has not appreciated your interruptions any more than the rest of your unfortunate colleagues.”  
  
Both boys turn pale.  
  
“Yes, sir,” Koschei says immediately, because he’s  _seen_  some of the things that Ushas grows, and he hasn’t forgotten her earlier threats. Next to him, Theta gives a stiff, quick nod in assent.  
  
The old man eyes them critically for another moment and then waves them out of his office.  
  
Theta spins on his heel and strides out the door, stiff-backed and, once he passes into the hallway, rigid with anger. Koschei follows him for a few steps, but his feet drag to a stop when Theta doesn’t slow or even bother to turn his head and acknowledge Koschei’s presence behind him.  
  
Koschei stares, arms limp at his sides, and watches Theta disappear around the corner. He’s seen Theta in a snit before, usually the nights prior to an exam when he’s realized just how far behind he is in his studies and locks himself in his room, snarling through the door every time Koschei approaches to knock.  
  
But this…this feels different. Koschei had thought that  _maybe_  Theta had been enjoying their intellectual spar at least a _little_  bit. In spite of the hurt, anger, and betrayal, Koschei had found matching wits with Theta to be refreshingly challenging and wonderfully stimulating. Theta appreciates genius as much as Koschei does, and Koschei had at least hoped to impress Theta with his own brilliance. But instead, Theta looks  _furious_ , and Koschei doesn’t think it’s just because they’ve been threatened (again) by their Chapter Head.  
  
Koschei meanders through the crimson lawns aimlessly for a while before finally ensconcing himself in the library. He has no classes today, nothing to take his mind off of Theta and how everything has gone so inexplicably  _wrong_.  
  
Koschei curls up in a chair by a window and plants his chin atop his knees. He stares outside. Beyond the shining dome, the mountains of Solitude rise out of burning silver seas to touch the twin-sunned sky with jagged white-gloved grey fingers. He’s never been particularly sentimental about the view beyond a Time Lord’s innate appreciation for artistic beauty, but now that he gazes into the mountains, he finds himself measuring the distance to the topmost tip of their snow-glistening peaks and finding them immeasurably far away.  
  
Time Lords rarely venture outside the Capitol. House Oakden’s estates are settled as far out as most ever go. But Theta has been to the steepest slopes of Solace, has clambered down from dizzy heights and pressed his fingers deep into the cold snow, has been close enough to see that the stones are actually gold and red and blue and silver—hidden color within pointillist grey.  
  
Koschei has known for decades now that Theta will never be content in the small glass world that he’s been born into; Theta  _sees_  too much. He takes ordinary things apart, cracks them open and finds cascades of beauty and miracles inside. Theta is a rebel, fresh and forceful and fierce, and he will shatter whatever mould their society tries to trap him inside. It’s one of the many qualities that Koschei has always loved about him. Koschei has never cared much for Gallifrey’s unimaginative, stagnant neutrality, so he has always believed that wherever Theta winds up going, they will go together.  
  
Koschei isn’t sure of that anymore. This isn’t as simple a matter as climbing a mountain, or co-piloting a TARDIS, or promising  _best friends always_  with that special word for Time that means  _eternity_  in a way that no other species can comprehend. It’s been two weeks, and everything that Koschei has tried to do has just seemed to push Theta even further away from him. The more time that passes, the more Koschei fears that the rift between them will never close. Theta is leaving Koschei behind, and none of Koschei’s plans have ever considered that possibility.  
  
Koschei hasn’t given up, of course. He will never give up, not as long as he still has regenerations left, but this isn’t a battle that he  _wants_  to fight. And at the moment, what with the Prydonian Head’s ultimatum and Theta’s icy fury, he’s not sure  _how_  to fight it.  
  
Koschei is so deep in his thoughts that he fails to notice when someone sits down in the chair next to him.  
  
“Kosch?” Drax’s voice startles him, and he snaps violently from distant mountains back to awareness like a rubber band stretched and cut.  
  
“Drax? Ah. Hello.” Koschei tries to hide his disappointment that the person who sought him out  _isn’t_  the one he wants to see most of all right now.  
  
Drax’s smile wavers, brittle with sadness. “Hey. I heard about…” he waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the Administration Offices. “It was pretty impressive though—everything you two did over the past couple of weeks.”  
  
Koschei stares silently at Drax and waits to see if his friend has a point.  
  
Drax falters and stares back for a second. Then he slumps and sighs. “Koschei, what’s up between you and Theta? We all know there’s been a falling out, but  _why_? You’ve been inseparable practically since you were born. And…you both look so miserable now.”  
  
 _Both?_  Koschei wonders.  _Oh, right. I’m upsetting his newfound besotted bliss. Good._  Koschei folds his arms loosely over his stomach and maintains his stony silence  
  
Drax holds out for another few seconds before shaking his head. “Kosch, I’m your friend, and Theta’s friend too. I just want to help.” He searches Koschei’s grey eyes and then continues, slowly. “If you don’t want to talk to me, then at least consider talking to Theta. Okay?”  
  
Drax isn’t going to go away until he gets some kind of positive response, so Koschei nods once.  
  
“Okay,” Drax says. “Okay, good.” He hovers in the chair for a moment longer. “See you in study tomorrow, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Drax nods, stands, and leaves Koschei alone with his thoughts once more. Koschei stares out at the mountains. A weight that feels uncomfortably like defeat settles in his hearts and aches. He suddenly feels so  _tired_. Drax may have a point, he realizes. It’s not as though Koschei has any other recourse left to him. He  _could_  target Vera next, sure, if he wanted to earn Theta’s undying  _hatred_ , which he really doesn’t.  _Just go and talk to him,_  he reasons with himself.  _Get it out in the open. Have him explain that he’s getting married and settle the rift between us instead of letting it yawn open, unsaid. Get closure of some kind. Maybe work out how we can stay friends, somehow. Maybe it won’t be too late if I talk to him soon._  
  
Maybe tomorrow.  
  
Koschei picks himself up out of the chair and trudges back towards his lab. He hasn’t cleaned it or ordered it since Theta’s latest attack, and his spectrograph is in absolute shambles.  
  
Koschei deadlocks the lab door behind him, more out of habit than security these days, and scuffs listlessly over to the nearest workstation in need of repair. He sifts broken shards of glass between his fingers. Their edges feel like feathers slipping across his palms. He pushes his notes—charred in corners and smoke-curled along the edges—off the table and into the dustbin below. Then he stares at the jumbled mess remaining, and his energy drains away with the realization that he can’t recall what any of it was for, and neither does he care.  
  
Koschei is so absorbed in his own misery that he fails, for the second time that day, to realize that someone else is in the room with him.  
  
The lights switch off, plunging the room into a dim, burnt-orange second sunset that is rapidly vanishing from the windows into darkness. Koschei whirls, throat tight and hearts pounding in panic, towards the light switches by the door, his body tensing instinctively in anticipation of yet another prank. The dark shape—shadow outlined in grey—of a slender, blurrily familiar figure stands there. Koschei doesn’t need his sight to know who it is; the brush of Theta’s mind against his own tells him before Theta even speaks.  
  
“Koschei.” The other boy’s voice is even, measured, and  _far too calm_. “We need to talk.”  
  
They really, really do, Koschei knows, but he’s also really, really not ready for this yet. “What are you doing in here? And how did you get in? I  _deadlocked_  that door.”  
  
Koschei can  _feel_  Theta’s smirk even if he can’t see it. The smugness that exudes from him is  _palpable_. The shadow’s arm shifts, and Koschei hears the light jingle of metal. “You aren’t the only one who can get access to Ushas’s spare keys to make copies.”  
  
Koschei swallows, scowls, and takes a step back. He crosses his arms stubbornly, like a shield against his chest between himself and Theta. “The Chapter Head said no more sabotage. I don’t know about  _you_ , but I don’t plan on getting kicked out of here just yet.”  
  
“I didn’t come here to sabotage.” Theta steps forward, hands gripping the lapels of his outer robe, from the shadows into the spill of dying sunset. His hair is on fire, and his eyes are coal dark with irises that spark cinder-blue. Koschei swallows and forces himself to hold his ground. His back is against the lab bench anyway, so there really isn’t anywhere to retreat to. Instead, Koschei leans against the hard edge of the table top, arms still crossed, and smooths his face with careful masks of boredom and disdain. “I came to talk,” Theta continues, still stalking slowly forward.  
  
“You didn’t seem particularly interested in talking the day I got back,” Koschei snaps.  
  
Theta stutters in his steps, confusion flickering like static in his eyes.  
  
Koschei’s temper flares. “What, don’t you remember? The park? You were talking to  _Vera_.” Koschei smears as much contempt as possible into the syllables of her name. “You noticed me and  _ran_.”  
  
Theta scowls. “You didn’t exactly give me a chance to explain afterwards.” He resumes his slow, predatory approach.  
  
“You could have talked to me anytime, Theta,” Koschei says.  
  
“So could you.”  
  
“I already know what’s going on, all right?” Koschei’s fingers dig, clawlike, into his arms, but he doesn’t even notice the pain. His sight is stained with anger, and all he feels is the strangling tightness in his throat and the black hole crushing his chest.  
  
That freezes Theta dead still. An expression of horror peels away the carefully masked layers in his face until what’s left is a naked fear and vulnerability that Koschei isn’t used to seeing exposed. “You do?”  
  
“Yes,” Koschei snaps. “And I don’t want to hear it! Not now! You could have done me the courtesy of telling me sooner instead of  _hiding_  it like a coward!” Theta looks stricken, but Koschei doesn’t care. He sees the pain and wants to dig for blood, wants to punish Theta for having ever been so cruel to him. “Or was it all just a game for you? ’ _Let’s see how well I can lie to my best friend. What a fun exercise in deception!’_ ” Koschei leans forward. “When did you find her, Theta? Was it a year ago, when you began avoiding me? Or was that just when you started getting sloppy?”  
  
Instead of the knife twisting home, like Koschei expects, Theta just looks confused. “Her?”  
  
“Yes,  _her!_ ” Koschei shouts. “Don’t you  _dare_  insult me by playing stupid!  _Vera_. You know, your  _girlfriend_ , or fiancée, or whatever in Sepulchasm you’re calling her.”  
  
Theta stares at Koschei. His expression twists from complete confusion to intense concentration, and then all of the pain, bewilderment, and annoyance is washed away as comprehension and a flood of  _relief_  sparkles in his blue eyes. He chuckles with amusement, and quirks his mouth in a small, smug smile. “Vera isn’t my girlfriend or anything of the sort. No, indeed. How utterly preposterous. Whatever gave you that idea, Koschei?”  
   
Koschei blinks.  _What?_  “What?”  
  
Theta smirks and closes the remaining few feet between them. His hands drop from his lapels and press against the table on either side of Koschei, pinning the shorter boy between his arms. Koschei swallows nervously, eyes wide. He leans back against the table, away from Theta but still trapped. “I’m hardly interested in  _Vera_ , Koschei,” Theta says, slowly as if speaking to someone incredibly thick.  
  
Koschei is too flustered and confused to be insulted. “What…then what about the park, and you avoiding me more and more this past year and spending time with  _her_  instead?”  
  
Theta shakes his head slowly. The smirk is still clamped infuriatingly on his mouth. His eyes have Koschei pinned just as effectively as his arms do. “I don’t know how you do it, Kosch,” Theta murmurs, “You can be so clever. Hm, yes, very clever indeed, and yet so unbelievably  _stupid_  at the same time.”  
  
Annoyed and definitely insulted this time, Koschei opens his mouth to retort with something scathing, but then Theta’s arms curl inward, the left one around Koschei’s lower back and the right cupping the curve of his neck, holding him gently but firmly in place as Theta dips his head down to claim his mouth.  
  
 _Oh…_  
  
Koschei has never been kissed before. He hasn’t realized until now how often he’s wondered what kissing Theta would be like, because none of his fantasies have prepared him for this. Theta tastes of sunlight and warmth, of electrified desire and all the spiced, unstoppered wildness that the Time Lords have failed to bottle away behind their dusty rules. The sensation is overwhelming.  
   
Koschei willingly surrenders.  
   
Theta sucks at Koschei’s lower lip, then enfolds his mouth over Koschei’s and coaxes it to open like a flower blooming beneath molten sunlight. Koschei has gone limp in Theta’s arms, boneless with shock and desire. He parts his lips and gasps. His whispery breath pulls Theta in, and the other boy explores his mouth while Koschei learns how to kiss him back. Koschei’s hands have crept upwards and are clutching tightly around Theta’s lapels, anchoring himself against Theta even as Theta’s arms tighten around him to do the same.  
  
They part long after their respiratory bypasses have activated, and then only so that Theta can press his forehead against Koschei’s and stroke loving thoughts through his open mind.  
  
 _Idiot,_  Theta thinks.   
  
 _Why…why didn’t you_ say  _anything?_  Koschei asks, still dazed but coherent.  
  
 _I didn’t know how to tell you,_  Theta admits.  _I wasn’t sure how you’d react._  
  
 _Idiot._  
   
 _Hm. Yes, the both of us, really._  Theta pauses. Then,  _I’m sorry about Vera._  
  
Koschei curves his thoughts open, questioningly.  
  
 _I went to her for help,_  Theta explains,  _on how to tell you. The week you were gone on your trip was the perfect time, but then I’m afraid I forgot when you were coming back—too preoccupied, I suppose—so, mm, you could say that I panicked a little bit._  
  
Koschei stares at him.  _We ended up sabotaging ourselves, didn’t we?_  
  
Theta chuckles and nods in agreement.  
  
Koschei curls his arms around Theta’s waist and holds their bodies close together. He can’t quite believe that this is real. Not fifteen minutes ago he’d thought he may have lost Theta completely, and now he suddenly has everything he’s longed so desperately for, and it’s  _wonderful_. He closes his eyes and tucks his head beneath Theta’s chin, his nose gently nuzzling the other boy’s throat. His mouth is still tingling with the lingering impression of Theta’s lips. He can feel Theta’s heartsbeat and hear his breathing.  _You’re my idiot, though. Mine. My Theta._  
  
Theta’s mind bubbles softly with amusement and affection.  _Yes. And my Koschei._  
  
And that sums up what Koschei has wanted for the past three weeks quite nicely.  
 


End file.
